This invention relates to a smoothing and drying apparatus for damp laundry comprising at least one mangle unit that is substantially formed by a mangle trough and a mangle cylinder associated with the mangle trough, and comprising revolving laundry guiding belts that promote the guiding of the laundry through the smoothing and drying zones, and which pass through the smoothing and drying zones and can be substantially adjusted by means of shifting device provided above the mangle cylinder to be redirected to the drying and smoothing zones.
A trough ironing machine (German Pat. No. 534 806, Kl. 8d, 20) is already known, which comprises several mangle troughs and mangle cylinders associated with them, which are lined with a textile coating. For better guiding of the laundry inside the trough ironing machine, especially in the zone of passage from one mangle trough to another one, laundry guiding belts are provided. These endless laundry guiding belts pass through the mangle troughs, being subsequently directed back to the trough inlet by means of a shifting device provided above the mangle cylinders. Herein, the distance between that portion of the laundry guiding belts that returns to the mangle inlet and the mangle cylinders is relatively small. Thereby winding a textile covering around the mangle cylinder or unwinding such covering from the mangle cylinder is possible only when the laundry guiding belts are removed before the winding operation. The need to remove the laundry guiding belts and to place them back after the winding operation into a position of drying and smoothing, however, is very costly and leads to large wear-and-tear of the laundry guiding belts. In addition, in view of the aforementioned steps, the winding operation requires a large amount of time.